Home Invasion

Totally freaked out last night when after having watched the last ever episode of The Americans (great end to a fantastic series), I glanced onto my living room floor and saw a massive slug.  I have absolutely no idea how it got into my home – I didn’t have any windows or doors open downstairs, and I couldn’t find a trail anywhere to see where it came from.  And it was really big – so I don’t know if there was a gap anywhere into my house that it could’ve squeezed through.  Did it somehow sneak in when I had the front door open, say to empty my bins?  Did it attach itself to my shoes or clothes and come in that way?  Very weird.  And it was in the middle of my living room floor, and no discernible trail that I could tell as to how it got there.  Now I’m paranoid that there are loads of these disgusting suckers in my house, probably primed to crawl all over me when I’m asleep.  Might have to lay a load of salt down today just in case.  Shiver.   

John McCain

Just finished watching a documentary on Senator John McCain.  Someone who I don't agree with on an awful lot of issues, but someone who I respect as a straight shooting politician - especially compared to the buffoon and jackals currently in government.  A slightly pandering documentary, but didn't shy away from some of his more controversial moments.  I'd seen clips of him as a prisoner of war at the Hanoi Hilton, and obviously he didn't stand a chance in hell against Obama in the 2008 election.  Thanks mainly to W's legacy.  But I admire and respect his honesty and his principals - a rare politician nowadays who will promote non-partisanship discussion and compromise on issues, just to ensure that the government actually governs.  He has brain cancer and so his days are probably numbered, but I hope there are more politicians like him.  I hope he continues to savage Trump, who he clearly doesn't like and in many ways is his total antithesis in destroying America's reputation and standards.   

Holiday Hangover

A not very constructive day back at work today after the long weekend.  Thought about “working from home” as I could have done with a lie in and catching up with my DVR recordings – for example, I recorded the Champions League final (but didn’t succeed in avoiding the score over the weekend!).  But here I am in the office - sucker.  In the next few days I’ll try to update the previous couple of posts with some photos and a little bit about where we went.  It has definitely made me want to make more of my weekends and holiday/vacation days going forward – the next holiday is Independence Day on 4th July, but unfortunately that is on a Wednesday which kind of sucks because I’d prefer a long weekend to drive somewhere.  So I might have to start thinking about shorter weekend trips away somewhere – maybe every other weekend?  I definitely want to explore more of Oregon, and I’d also like to see more of east Washington.  Not a bad time to do this before the schools break up for summer.  I just need to conquer my natural state of laziness!     

Cannon Beach, Oregon

Given how ill I was last night, I was worried that today might be a write off.  But felt surprisingly better, so after a quick early morning stroll and a much-needed breakfast out we headed to Cannon Beach –the more developed and upmarket cousin to the slightly blue collar Seaside where we were staying.  First went to Ecola State Park for some spectacular views of the coast, and then in to the town of Cannon Beach itself.  Another huge and wide beach that is great to walk down – especially with the big “Haystack Rock” looming just off the coast.  This was a very charming, albeit very popular, beach town that I would definitely recommend and would consider coming back to.  Then back home to some fish n chips, and staying up late chatting, playing cards and drinking – feeling a hell of a lot better than yesterday!  I want to explore more of the Oregon coast now – this was my first time here, and definitely won’t be my last, and we only saw a fraction of it.  Also reaffirms something that I think I’ve known for a while, and that is that I want to live/retire by the coast when I’m older.

     

Seaside, Oregon

A mutual friend of mine and a colleague was here for the weekend, so we drove down (braving the holiday traffic) to spend a few nights by the Oregon coast (even though I had suggested going to Portland, apparently my colleague’s wife had other ideas).  We stayed in an Airbnb rental in a coastal town called Seaside, a house that seemed like it hadn’t changed much since the late 70s.  My strong preference is to experience the local cuisine by eating out – but my colleague and wife had decided to bring some food to cook (they are Chinese).  So had some lamb skewers cooked on the BBQ and then wandered down to the huge beach to watch sunset – we were very lucky with the weather, which made for a great sunset beach walk.  During the rest of the evening, started to feel really ill – splitting headache, burning up, nauseous – when we got back I had to retire to my room to lie down in a lot of pain, and eventually ended up vomiting during the night.  A clear case of food poisoning – thanks either to some under-cooked meat or an unpleasant reaction to some strange Asian spices.  Not a good way to start the weekend!

Weekend

This might be my last entry for a few days, so wanted to get one in early today – going down to Oregon over Memorial Day weekend with a couple of friends, and leaving later this morning.  I’m not sure what to expect of the weekend – I wanted to stay in Portland where there is plenty of stuff to do, but apparently they’ve booked somewhere on the coast.  Different people, different priorities - I imagine this might be more of a weekend devoted to eating, drinking and hanging around, rather than my preference of getting out and about and seeing/doing as many sights/activities as I can.  Which is fine – I just have to look at this as something different to what I would do if I was travelling to Oregon by myself (which is something I need to start doing more of).

Lake Union (Again)

A few photos from a recent early evening walk round Lake Union from work to Gasworks Park.  It’s tough to come up with different views – so there is probably nothing new you haven’t seen already.

No photos, but also this week went to check out Amazon Go – the automated store where you don’t have to deal with a cashier or anything.  Not the easiest place to find, it's hidden among a load of construction zones where Amazon is taking over Seattle.  I didn’t go in – I don’t have the right app installed – but a lot of curious tourists (predominantly Asian) have managed to make it there.  Not quite as popular as the first Starbucks in Pike Place Market, but well on its way to being just as bad.  A bit too gimmicky for my tastes – but I will probably satiate my curiosity at some point and wander inside.  It is the kind of place that is going to be the epicenter of the robot uprising when that inevitably happens.   

Surprises, Lack of

Things that don’t surprise me:

- That the Korean summit collapsed
- Anything that Trump, or anyone in Trump’s government, says or does
- How pathetic the Republican Party has become
- That Brexit isn’t going smoothly
- That England’s world cup squad is underwhelming and their most important player is going to be hampered by being captain
- That more male celebrities are being accused of misconduct
- That NFL owners have forced through laws to prevent the right of protest by NFL players
- That mass shootings in the US will continue to occur without any meaningful legislative efforts to prevent them
- That large swathes of the US people will always inexplicably support Trump, because Americans are stupid
- That rents continue to rise (I’ve seen ads for 2-bedroom apartments in downtown Seattle for > $8000 per month!)

Thoughts from my desk

It’s currently 6.15 pm, and I’m writing this at my desk – waiting for the traffic to get better before heading home.  Current estimated commute time is 40 minutes, and I tend to wait until it comes down to 35 minutes before I leave.  Unfortunately, I’ve been sat at my desk wanting to go home for the last few hours – but the traffic this week has been horrendous, and I hate being stuck in it when it’s barely moving.  The weather has been good and I could have gone out for a walk, but I’ve got a big blister on my foot from too much walking – and I don’t want to make that worse before the long Memorial Day weekend.  Naturally, everyone else in the office (or at least everybody in my immediate vicinity) has already left – it is almost guaranteed that by 5.30 nobody will be here, even though we are supposed to be working 8 hour days.  I don’t think anybody does – it doesn’t count it you log onto your network later in the evening just to check your e-mails (which I don’t do.  I’m one of the very few people not to even take my laptop home most days – because I value the differentiation between work and not work.  Generally that is something that America and Americans don’t value that highly, even though I think they should).  If I wait until 7 pm, unless there has been a crash then the traffic should mostly have gone and it is a smooth commute home in less than half an hour.  I still have to endure a lot of bad driving and drivers no matter what time I leave – for the most part I have learnt to let this go, though that can be tough.  Tomorrow and Friday are supposed to be some of the worst days of the year for traffic – thanks to Memorial Day on Monday.  I’m still working both days, and not looking forward to the commute tomorrow because Thursday is already the worst day of the week for commuting (which in itself is interesting, because traditionally Friday was the worse but that is definitely not the case now – maybe because more people work from home on a Friday nowadays?  Whatever.).  Well, it’s 6.30 now and Goggle Maps tells me it’s about 31 minutes to get home, so I am leaving.  Goodbye!

Work Update

Well, it's official - I have a new manager.  Finally!  No big fanfare, no big announcement - in fact, no announcement at all.  I didn't even know I had a new manager beginning this week until someone else told me.  Neither my old manager or my new manager said anything to me.  Nice.  Not exactly the most auspicious start.  It's going to be interesting to see how I start to be used going forward - looks like I'm going to be in a supporting role rather than a leading role, which I don't mind as long as it doesn't hold me back from getting a promotion.  Which if I don't get at the end of the year, then I'm going to be extremely disappointed.  But it does seems that what I'm going to be working on is of higher importance and higher profile - so that bodes well (even if it means I might be a bit busier...!) 

Cougar Attack

Washington just had it's second fatal cougar attack in a 100 years.  What is scary is that the area where the attack took place - North Bend - is somewhere I have hiked before.  Though I suspect the trails I've walked are too developed and not nearly far enough off the beaten track to have made me at risk of being stalked by a mountain lion.  But still gives you pause for thought. 

TV Update

Since a lot of shows are currently wrapping up their seasons - just in time for the start of the Summer TV season which unofficially begins after Memorial Day - time for a quick update of some of the better shows I'm watching:

- Patrick Melrose: dark, depressing, excellent
- Killing Eve: female spin on classic spy genre
- Little Women: yet another adaptation, but still very moving
- The Circus: the best weekly political show
- Westworld: still hanging in there
- Billions: the best soap opera
- The Americans: the last series of possibly one of the most underrated, under appreciated and under watched shows ever
- Happy Valley: bleak British northern cop drama

I'm not seeing a lot of must-see TV this summer, so no excuses for not getting out more this summer!

Negative Advertising

It's interesting to note that in the last week I've seen adverts for Facebook, Uber and Wells Fargo Bank which all say something to the affect of we're sorry for our previous actions and promise to do better in the future.  Is this some sort of reflection of modern accountability?  Or has some advertising company decided to come up with this new strategy?  I guess it's one way to address a scandal, but I hardly think it is going to rebuild confidence in a company.  I mean, who is really going to trust Facebook any more?  I gave it up a long time ago. 

Royal Wedding

I couldn’t give a f*ck about tomorrow’s Royal wedding.  I shall not be getting up at 4.30 am to watch it.  I don’t need to see that ass Piers Morgan being interviewed on yet another talk show as a self-proclaimed royal expert.  I don’t care what kind of nonsense her family is getting up to.  The TV scheduling has been inundated with loads of cringeworthy and mawkish specials in the lead-up to the wedding – unbearable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned, but apparently Americans lap this kind of sh*t up.  Especially because it’s one of their own.  And at least 10 channels are going to show the wedding live – including all the main networks.  Just horrific.  As you may have guessed, I am not a royalist.   

Trivia Happy Hour

We had another work trivia event today – and based on turnout, it will probably be the last one we do.  Compared to last time, a lot less people and a lot less teams.  Not really a surprise when it concerns my department who are mostly Chinese, but other departments don’t have that excuse.  Not a good showing from me – little opportunity to show off my vastly alternative general knowledge compared to Americans, and generally lacking conviction with my answers to be particularly vocal within the team.  The topics didn’t help – nothing in my wheelhouse, and too many of those stupid 50-50 type questions that are more guesswork than any actual knowledge or logic e.g. what has bigger population x or y, blah-blah is more than or less than a 100 years old, etc.  There was a film round where the image from one film was matched with the music from another, and I surprisingly really struggled with this – very disappointed with myself.  Which makes the fact that our team won even more bittersweet.  A hollow victory as far as I’m concerned, but at least I got a gift card out of it.  Makes me want to go to a proper pub quiz – and embarrass myself further at my lack of knowledge.

Head Tax

Seattle is currently making the national and international news with its plan to tax the highest earning companies in the city to pay towards helping the homeless.  I’m not really sure how I feel about this.  Seattle definitely has a homeless problem, and companies like Amazon have grown exponentially and caused the cost of living in the city to sky rocket.  But is it right to tax successful and profitable companies in this manner – particularly the smaller companies?  It hardly encourages further growth and prosperity.  I do think Amazon has to do more to help the city – the first thing that crosses my mind is dealing with the traffic problems it has helped create.  But the city clearly already has a huge portion of its budget being spent to deal with homelessness, and it makes you wonder where all that money is currently going.  A tricky problem, with no easy solution and no solution that is ever going to appease everybody.   

Smell

We had a couple of days of unseasonably hot weather recently.  Nice?  Sure.  But unfortunately, with the hot weather a distinct and unpleasant smell has returned to parts of my house – I suspect I have mold.  This is concerning, and potentially unsafe – compounded by the fact that I’m having real trouble pinpointing the exact location of where the smell is emanating from.  It smells worse when I’m on the stairs, but whereabouts exactly by the stairs it is coming from I’m not sure.  This is on top of a few other issues with my house I’m having – notably the flapper on my upstairs toilet keeps on coming off.  I think I need to have a word with my landlord.  Since it’s been a year, I might as well see how much he is willing to do – I would like all the windows on the outside cleaned, and all the tree debris and crap that has accumulated over the years on the roofs and gutters removed.  As much as I like living in a detached house, I don’t like living in an old house with one issue after another – if I’m ever going to buy a house of my own, it is going to be modern and require minimal maintenance on my part. 

The Single Life

Last week I was asked if I would be interested in going out with a friend of a friend.  Of course I responded, what can you tell me about her.  I had a good idea what was coming next, and sure enough there were the 3 words I was expecting – She is Chinese.  Everything I was told about her after that I kind of tuned out from.  And so that was quickly nicked in the bud – I am not interested in going out with someone who is Chinese, no matter how pretty, intelligent or how good her English might be.  Does that say a lot about how much I resent “Chinese” for taking over my profession?  Probably. Does that make me racist?  More than likely.  But the simple fact is that, for whatever reason, I am not in any way attracted to anyone who is Chinese.  Don’t get me wrong – I have friends and colleagues who are Chinese who I get on with absolutely fine.  I probably shouldn’t be as picky as I am.  After all, this is not the first time I’ve tried to be set up with a Chinese girl.  But I’m just not interested in anything beyond a platonic/professional relationship with someone who is Chinese, and that is my personal line in the sand – for better or worse.  So I had to awkwardly tell my friend I wasn’t interested – made even more awkward by the fact that he has a Chinese wife.  But it is what it is and I am who I am – sorry.     

Happy Mother's Day

A Happy (American) Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.  I have absolutely no idea why Mother's Day in America is on a different day to Mother's Day in the UK - Father's Day is on the same day.  Weird.

Sweet Dreams

My new mattress was delivered Thursday.  Absolutely no need for me to have taken a day off work for the delivery, even though I was told I would have to sign for it.  I never did.  They never even knocked on my door to let me know there was a delivery.  It was late afternoon and I was still waiting, so went to the website to track the package online and it said it had been delivered.  I opened my front door, and there it was waiting for me.  Naturally the mattress was compressed into a much smaller box – but still weighed a ton.  No way I could lift it by myself, but with a lot of hard effort and a lot of sliding I did manage to get the box upstairs.  Negotiating the stairs was tough – moving the box up one step at a time, whilst letting my leg muscles take the weight of the box to stop it sliding down, was exhausting.  And probably exacerbated my back pain – which was the whole point of getting a new mattress anyway!  This weekend I have the fun task of swapping mattresses.  I have no idea how long it will take to decompress the mattress – but I’ll probably be sleeping on my rock hard spare bed for a few nights, just what my bad back needs…..

I hate Windows

Do I think it’s coincidental that almost immediately after I update my TV package online to remove some channels and reduce my bill, my internet stopped working?  It was very strange – I kept on trying to reboot my modem and although I had a Wi-Fi signal it couldn’t connect to the internet.  I was also in the process of installing updates to Windows on my laptop – and I have an inkling that was causing the issue.  My laptop has been showing some disturbing signs of something being wrong with it – things like the wallpaper on my desktop not loading up properly, and it being a bit slower than normal – but nothing as bad as this.  And I have no idea why an issue on my laptop would cause my modem to break rather than just the laptop – I lost internet connection on all my devices.  After spending a long time on a call with an “expert” trying to troubleshoot the issue, eventually realized that by turning off my laptop and rebooting the modem that I got an internet connection again.  But as soon as I turned on my laptop and it connected to the Wi-Fi signal, again the internet connection was lost.  This was a few days ago, and I tried connecting my laptop last night and everything seemed OK.  Perhaps this is because the Windows updates have been successfully installed, but I’m not convinced that the issue has totally resolved.  Maybe it’s time to get a Mac. 

Musical Interlude

A break from the words, with 2 David Bowie songs that somehow seem relevant to me.

Headgames

Found out that my new mattress is being delivered tomorrow, so rescheduled my ping pong semi-final for today.  Bad idea – I was ill prepared, distracted by various things (specifically work, but also issues with my home laptop – details to follow in a future post), and in absolutely no state of mind to play.  And, inevitably, I lost.  Again.  It was close – I lost the first set but won the second, but messed up the deciding set.  Massive feeling of déjà vu – I tightened up and missed easy shots in the decider, in exactly the same manner that I lost the final in the last tournament, even though there wasn’t any audience to speak of for this game.  Really disappointing.  I should have rescheduled for Friday, but honestly I don’t know how much difference it would have made to the result.  Gutted.  So, so, so, so frustrated.  But I still feel I will get over this one quicker than the final I lost.  I suspect I need to take a Roger Federer-esque break from the game, and come back stronger and better than ever.  And I know that I need to significantly improve my mental game if I’m ever going to have a chance of actually winning something.  Loser.

Parking

Some of the parking in our work garage is terrible – my old car had some scratches and dents that I think were caused by people hitting my car when they opened their driver door.  And then there was the time that someone parked so close to me on my driver’s side that there wasn’t enough room for me to get in, so I had to clamber across into the driver’s seat from the passenger side.  Now, I am especially sensitive to bad parking because I don’t want to see anything done to my shiny and new car.  I happened to go through the garage on the way back from lunch today, and look what I saw:

Isn’t that just terrible parking?!  That car wasn’t next to me when I parked this morning.  And it seems suspiciously non-compact, even though the spaces are clearly marked Compact.  And there is no way that person didn’t hit my car (with the GB sticker!) when they opened their driver door.  So that was a line crossed (literally), and I made a complaint about it.  Apparently, the driver of that car got a warning and was told to move their car – but I have no actual idea who it was.  But regardless, I have reached zero tolerance and I will take photos and issue complaints if I see any more blatant parking violations like this.  Someone who is as bad at parking as this doesn’t even deserve a spot in the garage.  I don’t care how senior or how important they might be.   

Ping Pong Progress

The most recent work table tennis tournament started this week.  I played a double-header today, and won both my matches comfortably to reach the Semi-finals of the Advanced bracket.  Unfortunately, my nemesis waits in the semis – the same guy who beat me in the final of the last tournament, and who has consistently beaten me in regular play.  Especially over the last month, but at least our most recent games have started to become closer so there is a glimmer of hope.  It is a daunting task – and I will need to play my absolute best to have a chance, and hope that tournament play reveals some cracks in his game.  It is scheduled for Thursday, so hopefully my bank pain will have gone away by then (unlikely, as my back pain tends to get exacerbated by stress, and work is definitely quite stressful at the moment). 

God of War

Why am I thinking about splashing out $60 (at least) on a PS4 game that I'll never play?  Even if it is one of the best reviewed games ever.  Perhaps because I've just splashed out $1000 on a new mattress, so this is small change.

I need to get out more and post more photos on this blog.  It's getting too wordy. 

Black Car

It is fair to say that dirt shows up on my black car just as bad as any other color, perhaps worse.  And even though it hasn't rained for a while, my car is dirty - it seems like there's a lot of pollen and/or sand (?) in my neighborhood that is coating my car (it is also turning my deck yellow!).  But it feels good when your car looks shiny and great after you've spent the afternoon washing and cleaning it. 

One of those days

A weird bad day today.  It started by waking up thinking it was Saturday, then coming to the slow and depressing realization that it’s actually Friday and I have to go into work.  Then wearing a new pair of shoes for the first time and realizing, after I’ve left home, that the shoes don’t fit and are really uncomfortable.  I tried them on at the shoe shop, so I have no idea what has changed between now and then.  Thank god I had an extra pair of sneakers at work.  And then I managed to tweak my already bad back playing ping pong this afternoon.  Really inopportune timing, as we have a ping pong tournament at work next week.  All of this on top of finding out that I'm going to be very busy at work for the next few weeks, and still really impatient that my manager situation has not changed yet (next week maybe?!?!).  It sucks to me, bro. 

Westworld S2

I’ve been watching Westworld Season 2, although I don’t plan to recap any episodes in this blog like I think I did for Season 1.  I can’t decide whether Westworld is really good or just really pretentious.   The first season at least had a clear arc of the robots gaining sentience and self-realization, with the “cute” trick of having the storylines played out concurrently over different timelines.  With Season 2, at least so far, the overall arc isn’t clear – more just an excuse to have the robots engaging in various violent encounters and philosophical musings on their way to some indeterminate destination conveniently located a long way away.  And again over multiple timelines – which feels a bit cliché now.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s still very entertaining and I will definitely continue to watch.  But I’m definitely not sold on this season anywhere near as much as I was on the first.  And I’m not anywhere near as interested in engaging in the various fan theories and speculation online compared to the first season (though I am aware of the B=T theory).  It definitely feels like the “Lost”-type scrutiny of Westworld has quite substantially dissipated this season.  Which may or may not be a good thing.   

A Bear

Well, my financial wellbeing took a large hit today.  Yesterday my company announced its first quarter earnings, and they were (unexpectedly?) below targets and expectations.  So consequently, the company’s share price dropped about 8% today.  So all the shares I have in the company courtesy of annual bonus grants and that I have acquired (and continue to acquire) via the Employee Stock Purchase Plan are now suddenly worth a lot less than they used to be.  What does this mean?  Well a quick check of my assets this morning has revealed that they are worth about $25K less today than they were yesterday.  Yikes.  But on the bright side, at least the company has started to do cash dividends – so I will get a little something extra next month.  Hopefully the share price will recover (or at least remain stable) going forward – I think we are mostly at the whims of the general stock market, which is worryingly volatile when you have Trump in charge.  But unless I have an urgent need to get hold of a load of money (e.g. towards a deposit should I ever buy a house, or more likely to sustain me during a work sabbatical), I’m not planning to sell any of my shares any time soon. 

PharmaSUG

One of my professions big annual conferences – PharmaSUG – is going on in Seattle right now.  I’m not really one for conferences – I’m more interested in exploring the city where the conferences are held, so I’d rather attend one that is somewhere I’ve never been before – but I’m kind of disappointed that no one in our department encouraged us to attend this one.  It wouldn’t have been costly – there are not that many potential attendees in the Seattle office, and we obviously wouldn’t have any expenses for travel or accommodation.  But nope, no one said anything.  I don’t know exactly how many, but quite a few people have travelled up from California from our company to attend.  I happened to bump into a few today who showed up wanting to check out our office.  But for the most part, I don’t know who is here and I won’t see them.  I think there may even be some from my group who I work with, but naturally my manager has said absolutely nothing about who is here so, stupidly, I will miss saying hello to them – the inability, and missed opportunities, to strike up better personal relationships with the people I work with continues to be a big issue with my current position, and just one of the many criticisms I have towards my current manager and working with a bunch of Chinese.  But turning back to the positive, I am meeting up with an old colleague from my time in California later on today who is also here for the conference.  Be good to see a rare fellow US-based Brit in our profession.  Probably won’t be a late one, I had totally forgot that today is May Day and hence loads of protests and activity downtown.  I don’t imagine there will be any serious violence – I think the Seattle police have learnt their lesson from several years ago – but could still be a lot of disruption, so I want to get home before it’s too late (especially with another early teleconference tomorrow morning – damn European team members and their time differences).